Towards preserving model coverage and structural code coverage

Abstract

Embedded systems are often used in safety-critical environments. Thus, thorough testing of them is mandatory. To achieve a required structural code-coverage criteria it is beneficial to derive the test data at a higher program-representation level than machine code. Higher program-representation levels include, beside the source-code level, languages of domain-specific modeling environments with automatic code generation. For a testing framework with automatic generation of test data this will enable high retargetability of the framework. In this article we address the challenge of ensuring that the structural code coverage achieved at a higher program representation level is preserved during the code generations and code transformations down to machine code. We define the formal properties that have to be fullfilled by a code transformation to guarantee preservation of structural code coverage. Based on these properties we discuss how to preserve code coverage achieved at source-code level. Additionally, we discuss how structural code coverage at model level could be preserved. The results presented in this article are aimed toward the integration of support for preserving structural code coverage into compilers and code generators.